


Rest

by NervousAsexual



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Friendship, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed, but like at least one of them is asexual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-13 07:25:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9112639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: Dwarfy shenanigans in the Dusklight Camp.  What goes on in those tents, anyway?





	

**Author's Note:**

> While I am disappointed we never got a proper dwarfy romance option (I love Harding, but we don't see her all that often), I've already headcanoned Varric as super-duper ace. He can come live with me and Josephine and my zombie horse if he wants, though.

All in all... the day could have gone better.

They barely managed to limp back to camp in one piece. Solas' robes were singed, Cassandra's cheek had been dashed open on a rock, and Cadash was sure every rib in her body was broken.

When they stumbled into the Dusklight camp the guard said nothing, just held open the flap of a tent. They all staggered inside in a row, like the world's largest smoke-smelling ducklings.

Now all was quiet. Cassandra was making aggressive sleeping noises, snoring, mumbling, that kind of thing. Solas was silent and probably already in the Fade. But Cadash felt cold and still couldn't sleep.

She'd initially chosen a bedroll near the exit, but the sunlight kept breaking in every time a breeze stirred. So she moved a bedroll back. That was... better... but she could still hear the requisitions officer yakking to someone. She skipped a few bedrolls to one on the other side of Cassandra and there was a rock in her back.

So she moved a little farther back, to the bedroll beside Varric's, and hoped he wouldn't comment on it.

No such luck.

"Come to admire the dwarf?" he asked. His voice was more hoarse than usual.

"Actually, I'm trying to find a decent place to sleep. I've had better luck selling ice to the Avaar."

Varric chuckled. "I take it that's something you've done before."

"Once or twice." She pulled the covers of the bedroll in around herself like a nest. "It isn't as difficult as you'd think. The traders go as far as Val Royeaux. Sometimes in the summer they get overheated."

"I'll have to remember that, try it some time."

"Better if you don't. Carta secrets and all. They'd have to kill you."

"They can get in line. The merchants' guild has first dibs."

 It was still so cold. She pulled the blankets from the empty bedroll on her other side and piled them up on every side.

"What _are_ you doing?"

"Shut up, I'm cold." She might as well have been back in Haven.

"Cold?" He half-laughed, half-snorted. "We were just lit on fire by an out-sized lizard, and you're cold?"

"Maybe that has something to do with it. I went from being on fire to being... not on fire."

He sighed.

"Stop judging me. It's called a Fereldan Frostback for a reason."

"Far be it from me to judge. Did I ever tell you about the time H... er, a friend of mine was nearly lit on fire by a qunari mage?"

"Can't say I have."

"They call 'em sarebaas. This one thought my friend was his handler. At least, that's what we _thought_ it thought. They don't talk much."

Never in her wildest dreams had Cadash ever imagined she'd feel this way--but she wouldn't have minded being in the Forbidden Oasis. At least there her finger and the tip of her nose wouldn't feel like they were falling off.

Varric sighed again, louder this time, and tossed back half of his covers. "Come on."

"Er... beg pardon?"

"We'll share body heat. Isn't that what the Avaar do when it's cold?"

"Varric... I like you, but not quite that way."

He looked mildly alarmed. "No funny business. Just... er..."

It was a little darker back here, but... "Are you blushing?"

He cleared his throat. "Look, are we doing this or not?"

She took one more peek around at the others. Solas was snoring a little now, curled up in a ball. Cassandra had mostly settled down.

"Okay," Cadash said. "Fine. But once this is done we will never speak of it again."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

So she dragged her covers over to his bedroll--she certainly wasn't going to leave them behind--and melded them with his. He faced the back of the tent and she faced the front. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

"Are you really cold?" he asked at last. "Because you don't feel cold."

"Don't tell me how I feel. I feel cold."

"Maybe you've got a fever. Maybe you caught draconian influenza."

"I caught what now?"

"Draconian influenza. Usually you only get it through direct contact with dragons. Nobody's really immune to it. It kills about fifty percent of dragonlings before they reach adolescence."

"So it's regular influenza... just from dragons."

"Aren't you listening? It's  _worse_ than regular influenza. And that's nothing to sneeze at. In Darktown... well, never mind."

Come to think of it, she had been feeling a little nauseous since they'd fought the dragon. She'd initially dismissed it as the consequences of being momentarily on fire, but now she had to wonder. "No. What about Darktown?"

"There was an outbreak after some refugees came in contact with dragons in a local mine. A sizeable portion of Darktown were left horribly deformed."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"Yes. I am."

Wait. "Are you being serious or sarcastic? It's hard to tell with you."

"I'm pulling your leg, Cadash."

Ugh. She stabbed him in the back with her elbow.

Out in the camp the requisitions officer was shouting now. Some one had gone out to hunt for onyx against her recommendation. If the herald of Andraste couldn't get past the Frostback, what did a mere scout think they were going to do? Someone would have to be sent after them, and bring back a supply of royal elfroot because they were going to need it.

"Do you ever actually sleep when we do this?" Cadash asked. "When we're having a rest in the tents, I mean?"

"No. You?"

"No."

Somewhere out there the Frostback was having the mother of all tantrums. She could hear rocks crashing down from the pillars, fire crackling in the trees. She was glad, a little, that she was here instead of there.

"Yeah, sadly I'm not as talented as Chuckles over there. He could sleep through anything. Doesn't matter that much. I'm not shooting things, and more importantly things aren't shooting me. It's better than the alternative."

"I guess."

There it was. The leathery flap of wings, the scream of the dragon. She burrowed a little deeper in the covers. Bumped against Varric's back. Pulled back again.

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

Maybe it wasn't the dragon screaming.

Once the thought was there she couldn't shake it. Did she really know what a dragon's scream sounded like? She knew smuggling and she knew stabbing and that was it. She didn't know anything about dragons. She didn't know anything about holes in the sky or demons from the fade.

"I know you're not sleeping."

"It's just... it's only going to get worse."

He said nothing.

"There's rifts all over the Hinterlands. Who's to say there aren't more somewhere else? How are we, how am I, supposed to close them all? I mean, people have died to put me here. How many are going to die to get me to the Breach? And what if it doesn't work?"

Still nothing.

"I'm a casteless dwarf who never had any business in that temple in the first place. And I'm supposed to sew up the sky? It's ridiculous. You don't hire a Crow to stop a blight, is all I'm saying."

Softly. "So who do you suggest?"

"I don't know. Templars? Grey Wardens? Even Solas knows more about what's going on than I do, and they're asking me what to do."

The screaming stopped.

"Look. For what it's worth... I've been there. And before you ask, no, not me personally. But my friend, the one the qunari tried to set on fire... she was the one everybody looked to. And she was nobody special as far as they were concerned. She was a refugee from Fereldan, some kid who grew up into some woman who stabbed things for a living. And when Kirkwall was burning and the Knight-Commander turned into a giant red lyrium monster, they looked to the stabby kid."

"But I'm not her."

"I'm not saying you are. All I'm saying is... everybody who is special used to be nobody special, you know?"

She couldn't think of a damned thing to say that wouldn't come out with her tears.

"Everybody except me, of course. I came into this world special."

And she had to laugh at that, in spite of the tears. She could smell singed hair, the smell growing stronger every moment, but outside someone was laughing, too. It was  the requisitions officer. She was laughing and yelling and just this once she didn't mind so much. Just this one time nobody died.

It wasn't much, but it was a start.


End file.
